


"No Offense, But Why Were We Friends?"

by josephina_x



Category: Smallville, Smallville Season 11 (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Feels, Lex Finds Out, Multi, Pissed Off Lex, Post-Series, Pre-Seven-Years-Later, Protective Lex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 10:38:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5160701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Lex met Clark ...again. Because we all know how easily Lex lets things go. *cough*</p>
            </blockquote>





	"No Offense, But Why Were We Friends?"

**Author's Note:**

> Title: "No Offense, But Why Were We Friends?"  
> Author: [josephina_x](http://josephina-x.livejournal.com)  
> Fandom: Smallville (TV), Smallville S11 (comic)  
> Pairing: Clark+Lex, Clois  
> Rating: R (just to be safe)  
> Spoilers: everything in the timeline up through S11 comic #2, diverges after that point  
> Word count: 6500+  
> Summary: When Lex met Clark ...again. Because we all know how easily Lex lets things go. *cough*  
> Warnings: Un-beta'd. Slight infidelity, sort-of. Woo.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit. So _very_ not mine.  
>  Comments: Yes, please! :)  
> Author's Note: Bah, I did no extended reading ahead into storyline spoilers for this, though maybe I should have done. Obviously gonna diverge from comics canon pretty quickly and completely, because it's a DC imprint and not, say, Wildstorm *g*. I pull quotes straight from the S11 comic #2 in the beginning -- that stuff isn't mine, folks -- I'm a just borrowing it for reference. So no hard feelings, ok?
> 
> Originally posted to LJ on 2012-04-27 here: [link](http://josephina-x.livejournal.com/22215.html).

~*~*~*~*~*~

Once back at the office and having banished the voice and appearance of his sister's spectre from his mind and vision -- the freaky, annoying, threatening, and thoroughly unhelpful redhead... Lex was _glad_ not to remember her properly -- he settled in to work. But, his earlier planned-accidental interaction with Kent -- and the man's sudden unexpected disappearance -- nagged at him a bit.

_"We were-- friends-- when I was younger."_

_"Surprised you **remembered** that, given your condition."_

_"Only what I've been able to cobble together from press clippings here and there. I hope you'll take no offense, but I don't see how we could have been more than passing acquaintances."_

_"Like you said, we were younger."_

But that had hardly been an answer, had it? Really just a clumsy redirection, at best.

_"Sorry the rest of us don't meet your **valued** approval."_

_"Quite an attitude buried under all the clumsy, Kent. Maybe **that's** what used to interest me about you."_

_"Something like that."_

As he mused over their conversation, Lex realized that that had been another lame redirection, with no real explanation given.

...Come to think of it, Kent had seemed startled and a little worried when he'd thought Lex might remember him. And he had seemed to be agreeing that they had been friends at one point, but had implied that they had not been for some time.

The press clippings that Lex had found had certainly indicated the latter, but the former? Why would Kent be _worried_ what Lex thought of him, now? From some of what he'd been finding in the annals of the LuthorCorp archival projects, he and his sister had not been saints, but they hadn't been irrational monsters. Even before his memories had vanished, he'd apparently felt he had no reason to make Kent's life a living hell, for whatever past slight or disagreeable action Kent must be imagining. Why would Kent think Lex might change his mind now, if he knew of it, especially with his actions as of late? What could it possibly be?

Curious now, Lex set his work to the side of his desk for the moment, and paged his secretary for the proper numbers of those he knew in authority. He spent a few moments exerting his influence to have any police reports including himself or Kent discretely pulled and copied ...from both Metropolis and Smallville, as the small town had been Kent's home, and apparently Lex's own for a short few years before the mansion there had been destroyed.

When took the elevator up to his penthouse later that night and entered the sitting room, and saw how much remaining clear space was left on the coffee table that _wasn't_ being taken up by the _several_ piles of files awaiting perusal at his leisure, his eyebrows raised quite a bit.

...And, upon having settled down on the couch with a scotch neat, he found those files incredibly enlightening.

He started from the beginning, reading about himself, and wincing at times. He hoped that not half of what was in them was true, but they were official records, so someone had thought so. Then Lex started opening and reading the files side-by-side once he got to the 'Smallville era'. And chief among them was a report that Lex had had a car accident at a bridge at the edge of town and gone straight into the water from a rather appreciable height. Kent had apparently dove in and pulled him out, and even performed CPR on him. He'd brought him back to life on the side of a riverbank.

Well, that explained what had prompted the beginning of their association, no doubt. Imagining the clumsy reporter having performed such a feat in his youth made him a bit... intriguing. On the surface, he didn't quite seem the heroic type. And that mouth... with that attitude?

So, the man _was_ interesting, even now.

That alone didn't seem to be a good enough reason to have chosen Kent as his best man at his first wedding, however. ...Though, apparently the boy-man had also been at Lex's side to help stop and incarcerate her when she turned out to be a psychotic murderous black widow and tried to kill Lex shortly thereafter. Lex kept reading.

There were other incidents, scattered throughout the years. A few kidnappings, a few false accusations. It was a little shocking how often a high school aged boy managed to end up in the middle of so many ongoing investigations... and as part of the resolution of them. Lex was vaguely surprised that Kent hadn't gone into law enforcement, as it seemed more his 'thing' than being just a 'simple investigative reporter'. _Hm._

The police reports had even mentioned that during the Senatorial race years ago -- in which Kent's father had ran opposing Lex and ended up having been elected to office over Lex himself by a none-too-wide margin -- Lex had reportedly stepped in and worked with the younger Kent boy constructively to try and stop Jonathan's would-be murderess from being successful. --And the fact that Lex himself had deferred the seat, leaving Mrs. Kent to take the position after her husband's heart gave out, when he could just as easily have taken that Senate seat by default, said something rather telling, he felt. So did the very brief report that apparently Clark had, at a later date, gone and put himself in mortal danger, entering a labyrinth of tunnels to try and save him from a couple of terrorist kidnappers, when there had already been explosions below the surface and those tunnels already known to be unstable and collapsing. And that incident, oddly enough, had happened long after their social association had seemed to have ended.

 _Had we parted ways amicably? Did we just grow apart?_ But that didn't seem to ring quite true. Lex knew himself as well as he was able -- without a past, he made damn sure that he knew himself in the present. If he had a person whom he could trust, who he considered in close confidence, he would not just let that fall by the wayside; he doubted he would have then, and he certainly would not do so now. _Would he be amicable to restoring that friendship?_ ...But could that even work? They both came from such disparate socioeconomic backgrounds, and Kent was a reporter. How could Lex be anything other than a mealticket story to him? _Perhaps it was only possible when we were younger,_ he wondered with a frown.

 _...Or did I have something on him that had us working together, in a continued non-social association?_ That seemed more than a little outrageous, given that Kent didn't seem the sort of person who someone of Lex's means would find useful, frequently or otherwise.

But, as he re-read the Smallville incident records more closely, more often than not, what the police reports _didn't_ say, what was either vaguely explained or blatantly left out -- such as the mode and means of many of the criminal acts -- was telling. The town seemed to have a rather astonishing mortality rate, and high crime statistics, for what should have been a sleepy, backwoods locale. The fact that Kent had survived growing up there _and_ being involved in so many deadly situations on top of all that seemed to suggest there was something _more_ about him, past the usual. And those numbers were entirely separate from the death and injury toll that had been the result of the two odd meteor shower events that had hit town _\--and how the hell often does something like that strike twice?_ It bore an uncanny resemblance to the Contact event in surface details, if not in actual scope and resolution.

Lex had read the LuthorCorp (and LexCorp) files on the so-called 'meteor freaks' supposedly mutated by the asteroids that had hit, and the extensive records of Level 3 and 33.1 both, but he'd thought them either the product of a deranged mind or two, or outright fantasy in most, if not all, cases. ...Though, the more he saw in the six months he _could_ remember, and the more he learned about the sightings of these 'metahumans' that kept cropping up, the more Lex found himself beginning to doubt his original scoffing reaction. And the number of names in the vague reports that matched the names of subjects who had first been sent to Belle Reeve, before being cycled into those other projects, matched up far too often for his comfort. Lex shifted uneasily and began to wonder if Kent himself might be a little more than ordinary. None of the reports he'd read or articles he'd clipped had made mention of even a hint of that, though, and it seemed grossly unlikely that a reporter-type _wouldn't_ use any extranormal abilities to the hilt, for a greater advantage in what was a rather cutthroat field, if he did.

...Yet with a flying man in town, how impossible **was** the impossible, truly?

_In blue tights, no less. Ha._

_...I wonder what Kent would think **he's** overcompensating for?_

Well, if the truth was stranger than fiction, then perhaps it was time to read through some of the tabloids, too. Generally they sensationalized the facts, if not outright fabricated things wholecloth, but sometimes there was a grain of truth in even the most unworthy rag. If he read the stories like just that -- fiction, or a twisted fairy tale -- maybe he'd still be able to make enough sense out of what he saw to find other tracks to run down, new information to research. And even if the written 'story' was an outright lie, if the pictures themselves weren't doctored -- well, he could just draw his own conclusions from those, then, couldn't he?

Lex began to regret it long before he found himself holding a yellowed copy of a tabloid article, proclaiming that one Clark Kent might be the cause of a breakup in the relationship between one Lana Lang and one Lex Luthor. One Clark Kent, staring at him up off the page, with a farm-fresh face and tousled hair, and no glasses to obscure eyes of a rather lovely shade of blue-green. Lex sighed good-naturedly down at the photo, because compared to Kent's usual glasses-bespeckled and slicked-back hair look, this one definitely won out, and he wondered why Kent had saw fit to change his appearance. _Perhaps he thinks it makes him look older, more professional?_ But there were better ways to accomplish that, surely...

Lex absently glanced at the date of the piece, and realized the article had been printed a significant period of time prior to the marriage, and later divorce of, Lex's third ex-wife. The beautiful, cunning ex-wife who had faked her own death and tried to pin it on Lex. The ex-wife who had cut and run with five million dollars of his money, who he had been assured would try to kill him if ever she came near him again, just like his other two exes, though why anyone had thought he'd find that information _reassuring_ was simply beyond him.

Then something twigged in his memory, and he found himself paging back through the police reports and checking the dates. He had to reread them six times before he was able to convince himself that he wasn't reading the dates incorrectly.

Clark Kent had saved Lex from those tunnels well _after_ Lex had married Lang, was still married to Lang, and by all accounts at the time Lex had been thought as good as dead, between the mental state of the kidnappers and the destabilization of the area. At the time Kent entered those tunnels, the rescue crews were being pulled out -- he'd gone in after Lex alone. And if the tabloids hadn't been entirely wrong, Lang had gone back to Kent after her divorce from Lex, and it hadn't been an idle fling. All Kent would have had to do to have her sooner, and the both of them to have had full claim to LuthorCorp through Lang's widowship, would have simply been to _not_ enter those caves.

_What the hell? Why did he help me?_

The thought wore on his mind for the rest of the day.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex strolled into the bullpen at the top floor of the Daily Planet, surveying the area like a king over his ailing subjects none-too-loyal courtiers.

"What the hell are you doing here, Luthor!" Lane demanded, stomping over.

Ah, his adoring public. Lex smiled.

"Hello, Lane," he said amicably. "Your father sends his regards."

"If he was, he'd just tell me himself; he's got a cellphone, he doesn't need you," Lane sneered at him levelly in her three-inch heels, coming to a stop right in front of him. "You don't own the place anymore, and I know you don't have an interview."

"Actually," Lex said coolly, sliding his hands into his pockets, "That's not quite true." He noticed a few heads pop up over and out of cubicles, as other reporters started to take notice of the action. He had to stifle a grin as he noticed Kent slide back a chair, leaning back to peer out of a cubicle two 'doors' farther up the line.

"What? You have an interview?" Lane frowned at him. "With who?"

"Whom," Lex corrected absently, "And no, I hadn't planned on one."

He saw Lane pause.

He saw her recall the first option.

He saw her blink.

And then her left eye twitched.

"What," she said flatly.

"I heard that the Daily Planet was doing badly, still, and opted to buy it back."

He was treated to another twitch.

"You bought the Daily Planet? _Again?!?_ " Her voice rose in volume to nearly a shriek, and Lex had to force himself not to wince at the pitch.

"Yes."

Lex was treated to watching Lois Lane, Bulldog Bitch, have an episode _right in front of him_.

Hot damn, if he'd known the Iron Army Brat would have reacted this way, he'd have done it sooner!

He suffered mightily for his efforts to keep a shit-eating grin off of his face. There really was nothing else like pissing off Lois Lane.

This probably made him a bad person.

He thoroughly enjoyed it anyway.

"Um, Lois?" Kent said, sidling up to her as she ranted and raved.

"I-- that-- he--! _Did you hear what he did, Smallville?!?_ "

Kent looked a little pained at her tone and nodded tentatively as he gently put his hands over her shoulders from behind. Lex internally frowned at the derogatory nickname, in Lane's chosen tone.

"You--! You bastard! Why would you do that?!" Lane demanded.

"You've been putting out tabloid articles recently, like most of the newspapers in the area, and I'm tired of it. I'm going to have a local news source that reports on things I might care to read about, if I have to own and manage it myself," Lex explained smoothly. _That, and the look on your face is priceless, right about now. So. Win-win._

Lane literally _growled_ at him, and Kent looked a little perturbed, pulling his hands back. He pushed his glasses back up with a finger, then asked, "Erm, so, _are_ you actually going to be managing the paper yourself, then, sir?"

Lex had to blink at him a moment, because Kent didn't _sound_ like he had earlier. And the younger man wasn't looking him in the eyes, either.

What he _did_ seem, however, was extremely self-conscious of the number of people watching and listening in on them just then.

_How... odd._

"I spent some time this afternoon talking Perry White into becoming the new editor-in-chief, actually."

He heard a few murmurs from those surrounding him, and he allowed himself the luxury of a smirk, reveling in the coup-de-grace.

At least, until he realized that Kent wasn't quite staring at him with the same awe or utter disbelief that his peers were exhibiting.

"Problem?" Lex asked Kent.

"I... no... it's just..." Kent looked almost pained again, as he tried to find a way to express himself, apparently. "You did not think, um, highly of him. For awhile." Kent frowned a little as he stared at his feet and shuffled them a little. "I think that... you _might_ have been ok, though... after..."

"Oh, him and you Luthors were like cats and dogs!" a perky wide-eyed curly-haired blonde female reporter offered out, practically shoving Kent out of the way and to the side as she all-but- _bounced_ her way forward. Kent seemed to shrink inwards and backed up a step after she had performed her partial body-block, to the tune of an annoyed and irritated frown from the blonde woman for, it seemed, not moving out of the way quickly enough, no less.

"Um... yes..." Kent mumbled so quietly that Lex hardly heard him as the blonde prattled on about something-or-another, possibly to do with the topic at hand, until Lex had had enough.

Turning away from the chattering filly, Lex addressed Kent directly. "I thank you for your concern, but Mr. White did, in fact, remind me of just that fact."

Kent's head came up slightly, and he looked a little... relieved. "Oh. Well, good."

Lex took that reaction at face-value, and grimly decided that, for the life of him, he came to the disturbing and disgusted conclusion that past-him had been a complete idiot. How could he have let this relationship go without a fight, if even the mere remnants of it produced this level of care and concern?

Lex also did not fail to note that the rest of the reporters within range looked shocked at their exchange. And at first, it was not clear to Lex why this was. ...At least, until he focused carefully and was able to make out a few snatches of phrases from the background murmuring here and there. From those, he was able to deduce that they had been frozen in disbelief that Lex had noticed and paid actual real attention to Kent, let alone spoken with him civilly.

And, on some deep level, this greatly annoyed him.

"Of course, I'm a very busy man, Kent, and no doubt you are as well, so let's at least attempt to start our discussion close to the agreed-upon time, shall we?" Lex ad-libbed, striding forward and snagging Kent by the elbow. He tugged Kent along beside him to the nearest door, opened it, and escorted them through.

Kent may have followed him tamely, but when the door closed it was as if a veil fell away from him -- his entire demeanor changed, posture straightening as he relaxed. Lex wondered if Kent realized exactly how tense he'd been under everyone's attention out in the center of the bullpen. Decided, Lex took the moment to lock the door and shut the world out for a time, then glanced around the somewhat mediocre-sized fileroom.

"I wonder how we managed to stay friends for as long as we did, with you being so attention-shy," Lex offered up, taking a step or two away from the door, and possible eavesdroppers.

Kent followed, grimacing. "You didn't get all _that_ much attention in Smallville," he offered.

"Should I feel flattered or insulted?"

Kent just rolled his eyes. "Why not be both? I'm sure you can afford it," he snarked, sounding a little exasperated.

Lex had to stifle a quick smile. This was better. Much better.

"Why were you acting like that in front of them?" Lex asked, waving a hand at the door.

"What?" Kent said, looking and sounding confused.

"You act differently with me; why not all the time? I think it suits you."

Kent opened his mouth, then seemed to stall out. He stared at Lex for a moment, got a deer-in-the-headlights look, then blinked, snapped his mouth shut, screwed his eyes closed, and looked for all the world like he was mentally kicking himself.

"I take it that you didn't realize that you haven't been keeping up the pretense, ruse, what-have-you, with me, then?" Lex asked lightly, unsure how to take this development.

"I--" Kent blinked open his eyes and met Lex's gaze, then glanced away and grimaced again.

"Someone I trust thought it would be a good idea to act that way with people who don't know me," Kent said, finally.

"I see..." Lex said neutrally.

"I'm _so_ glad that meets your approval," Kent said, with about twice as much attitude as he had exhibited out on the street and an accompanying eyeroll.

"You're welcome," Lex said with a quick shark-like grin.

Kent glanced back at him, tilting his head to the side and looking about to protest, before getting a good look at Lex. At which point he must have realized Lex was kidding, because he merely sighed and shook his head ruefully.

And _that_ said volumes. --Kent must have known him very well, indeed, once upon a time.

...And perhaps still did.

"You seem to care a great deal about my well-being," Lex put out there, walking forward towards Kent.

"I do?" Clark said, sounding surprised, and frowning a little. He didn't back up, and Lex found himself staring up at him.

"You do. I must confess, I read a bit more about you after our encounter yesterday morning."

Kent blinked down at him. "You did?"

Lex nodded.

"Why?" He sounded almost suspicious, with an undercurrent of worry.

"I found you interesting."

"You-- what?!? Why?" Kent looked inordinately shocked.

"I knew you before, and you me, and yet you didn't try to take advantage of that. You kept it low-key. You even seemed a bit... nervous about it, for reasons that escape me at present." Lex took another step closer. "And then I read about all of your exploits in Smallville."

"...You did?" Kent gulped heavily.

"Mmhmm. I did. Somehow it seems a bit peculiar that someone would save my life on multiple occasions, including a rather awful car crash into a river, and--"

"Wait," Clark interrupted him, raising his hands palms-outward. "Wait, wait, wait. You read about the car accident at Loeb Bridge _after_ meeting me?"

"Yes."

"Not before?"

"No."

"You--" Kent swayed slightly, staring at him, too many emotions warring on his face for Lex to decipher them all. "You... you thought I was interesting _before_ you knew about the crash?" he said, sounding a little shocked.

"Yes," Lex repeated simply.

"You thought I was interesting **before** you knew about the crash..." Kent echoed again, breathily, staring down at him wide-eyed and sounding almost... in awe.

Lex blinked up at him, wondering what was so difficult about the concept. "Why, Kent, hasn't anyone else ever told you that they think you're an interesting person?"

"No," Kent said without thought, then blinked, shook his head slightly and amended, "Not and meant it, anyway."

"A travesty of the highest order," Lex muttered, looking Kent up and down, before staring up into Kent's eyes.

And then he had an epiphany.

Suddenly Kent's behavior made a lot more sense. Too much sense.

"Oh," said Lex.

"Oh --Huh? What 'oh'?" Kent echoed, frowning down at him slightly as he began to pull out of his own thoughts.

It being an opportune moment if he'd ever seen one -- at least from those memories he could remember -- Lex slid the palms of his hands up underneath Clark's coatjacket, leaned forward, closed his eyes, and kissed him.

And then pitched forward abruptly.

They slammed into a few cardboard boxes, Lex on top, straddling him, Clark underneath, splayed out limbs all akimbo, and after laughing breathlessly, Lex leaned down to resume the kiss.

Until he realized that Clark was staring up at him in shock.

Lex paused about half an inch away from Clark's mouth, returning Clark's stare.

"Problem?" he breathed across Clark's lips.

"You... you _kissed_ me." Clark looked half-terrified, half-in-shock, and confused-all-around.

Lex began to doubt his original conclusion had been entirely accurate.

"I thought we had done that before."

"Why would you think that-- that-- _...That?!_ " Clark said, wild-eyed.

"I read a few articles that suggested such."

There was a long pause as Clark stared up at him.

Oh, dear.

"...I thought that Lana was a beard," Lex explained slowly.

"Lana doesn't have a _beard_ , she's a _girl! --What the hell kind of articles have you been reading!?!?!?_ " Clark blurted out, looking horribly irritated with the world at-large.

Oh. Dear. Kent didn't even know what he was _talking_ about...

_Well, shit._

"I, ah," Lex said, straightening a bit and backing off. Clark levered himself up on his elbows, glowering at him.

"I can't believe you just kissed me. Why did you kiss me?" Lex opened his mouth, about to apologize and belatedly worried about the possible implications of his buyout and immediate sexual assault of one of his possibly-actually-heterosexual employees, except Clark spoke first, saying, "What is it about people cornering me in storerooms and kissing? You couldn't just ask first?!?"

Lex snapped his mouth shut.

They stared at each other for awhile.

"Clark, may I kiss you? Lex asked, finally.

Clark stared at him again. He opened his mouth, closed it again, then opened it and said flatly, "I meant asking me about whether you thought we kissed before."

"Oh. ...Well, did we ever kiss before, and may I kiss you?" Lex asked again, affecting a bland, innocent look and stifling a grin.

"Lex!!!" Clark chided, sounding shocked.

"That's not a yes or a no--"

"No! No, we never kissed before-- I mean, the CPR stuff from before doesn't count!" Clark backpedaled, "And no, you can't kiss me!"

"Are you sure? It seems I did just a short while ago. It seems perfectly possible to me," Lex teased.

"I-- you-- I have a fiance! We almost got married the day of the-- the day of Contact."

"That sounds like a horrible reason to try and get married," Lex commented.

"Reason? We had planned to get married before that!"

"And you decided to tie the knot _during--?_ "

"God, Lex, we didn't know it was going to happen _that day_ ," Clark complained, pinching the bridge of his nose. "We chose the date well in advance."

"Hm. Sounds like a sign."

Clark glared at him. "Lois and I don't believe in signs."

"Lois...?"

"Yes, Lois. Lois Lane. She's my fiance."

 _Well, hell. ...No, I take it back,_ Lex thought. _The proper exclamation for this sort of thing would be, I think, "OH HELL, NO!"_

"Oh, yes. Definitely a sign," Lex said firmly. "Clearly you two are not meant to be."

"Lex!"

"You two try to get hitched and a planet nearly falls on your heads? I'd think a sign of the Apocalypse nearly coming to pass due to your actions ought to be a very big--"

"The whole Contact event had _nothing_ to do with our wedding," Clark gritted out, glaring at Lex.

Lex smiled. "...Are you sure?" he asked innocently. "Probably best not to risk it, don't you think?"

Clark's glower ought to have made him look ugly and undesirable, but instead it was having the opposite effect.

Lex decided that yes, he truly was interested in men after all. Or at least the one he was currently still straddling.

"I still don't see why I can't kiss you," Lex repeated. "It's not as though you're married."

"Besides the fact that Lois would kill me?" Clark said, then he realized what he had said, and collapsed back into the boxes, groaning.

"...What's wrong?" Lex asked. He wasn't that bad a kisser, was he? He'd realized pretty quickly that Kent had to be at least bisexual, considering the ordering of importance of his objections, and the objections he _didn't_ voice or otherwise seem to have. Such as not liking guys.

"Lois. She hates it when I kiss people."

" _I_ kissed _you_ ," Lex pointed out helpfully, because if there was one thing he was good at, it was exploiting loopholes.

"Doesn't matter," Kent groaned, scrubbing his eyes under his glasses. "She's totally unreasonable about it. I could start it, somebody else could. Doesn't matter. She always takes it out on me."

 _Takes it out on him?_ Lex frowned. "How so?"

"Usually she kisses some other random guy, right in front of me," Clark griped.

"So, a kiss for a kiss?" Lex asked.

Clark nodded.

"And it doesn't matter that I'm a guy and not a girl? Or would she have to kiss a girl as revenge?" Lex asked, curious.

Clark moved his hands away from his face and stared up at him. "I don't think it matters who kisses me, Lex," he said slowly.

"I don't suppose you could just not tell her?" Lex tried.

"She'll know just by looking at me! If I don't tell her, she'll find out eventually, and it'll only make things worse." Clark sighed and gave him a 'you just got me in a lot of trouble, I hope you're happy' look.

"Hm," said Lex, thinking.

~*~*~*~*~*~

After the earlier mishap, Lex had a fairly long, mostly-pleasant conversation with Clark about what he'd read, and what had and had-not happened back in Smallville. (Most of it had been spent straddling Clark's lap. He hadn't seemed to mind it. He definitely hadn't suggested moving, and Lex hadn't been about to himself.)

Though, maddeningly enough, there were multiple times when Clark simply refused to discuss something with him.

_"Do you want me to lie to you?" Clark asked._

_"No!"_

_"Then stop asking."_

At which point cursing had ensued, but Clark had held firm.

All-in-all, it had been an incredibly enlightening interaction. Lex walked out of the fileroom with Kent, humming.

"What are you so happy about?" Lois accused right away, having lied in wait.

Lex smiled at her. "I had a nice conversation," he said cheekily as he walked by her. "Oh, and that reminds me..." he said, pausing and turning on his heel about a foot away from her.

"What," she said belligerently, glaring at him suspiciously.

She certainly had a right to be, after all, so he might as well make it memorable.

And so Lex grabbed her hand, pulled her forward, spun her, and gave her a long kiss, no tongue.

And then spun her back upright once done.

Lois had been stiff as a board throughout. Once upright again, she looked horribly shocked, then scrubbed at her mouth with the back of her hand, cursing for a good five minutes straight.

"What the hell was that for, Luthor!?!?" she finally demanded, looking like she wanted to punch his lights out.

"Getting even."

"What?!?"

"I was evening things out," Lex elaborated, gesturing back at Clark before blowing him a kiss. Clark went pale as Lois whirled around and turned on him. Lex walked down the corridor towards the elevator and heard her demanding an explanation and him stammering an apology and 'that he could explain'.

Lex smiled to himself as he hit the button for the elevator. Kissing Lois had been thoroughly unpleasant, but kissing Kent, as chaste as it had been, far outweighed it. Certainly, it had been a far less costly price to pay than those benefits received because, well, flustering Kent and making him blush? Throwing Lane off her game, having her explode, and making her jealous and working towards breaking the two of them up permanently, which would leave Lex with a chance to catch Clark for himself? --After all, Clark hadn't seemed disgusted by the kiss; he may have actually responded slightly, now that Lex thought about it. So it was a win-win-win for him, as far as he was concerned.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The next morning at the press conference on his company's new foray into the space sector, terrorists tried to bomb the platform _and_ shoot Lex dead.

It seemed a bit overkill to him, personally.

What had been astonishing had been how Clark had leapt up onto the stage and shoved him out of the line of fire. He'd turned to face Lex and Lex's breath had caught at the sight -- wind-whipped hair, no glasses, nothing to hide his beautiful eyes, his gorgeous good looks, _so_ much better in-person than that faded tabloid picture -- so when Clark had told him to stay down in a deeper tone of voice, Lex just nodded up at him from the ground, enthralled.

It was only later that the cursing began.

Lex hadn't realized Superman had saved him up on that platform. He'd only been staring at Clark's face. Who was Superman. The fact that he was wearing a 'blue shirt' had barely registered. When he saw the news report later on TV that night, he nearly threw a paperweight through the screen.

He'd bet anything -- hell, even LexCorp! -- that Lane had been the one to come up with the whole lame 'act like a freak at work' plan.

Who the hell did Clark think he was fooling anyway? Glasses and slicked back hair? _That_ was supposed to be a disguise?!

More importantly, _how stupid did he think Lex was?!?!_

Well, now he knew why Clark had been so nervous when he'd thought Lex had his memories of Smallville, then. Lex could blow his 'secret identity' wide-open. Assuming everyone else was as dumb as a sheep and blind as a bat. He couldn't believe this was not news already. Surely, he could not have been the only person to have noticed?

 _Clark must not have told old-me about his abilities,_ he determined grimly. Because if Clark had, no doubt several notable prior events would have gone very differently.

Frankly, if Clark had thought old-him would have reacted half so bad as he was reacting right now, then... Lex couldn't actually blame him. Lex seriously wanted to shoot Clark in the face for being such an _idiot_ , and assuming such from _Lex_ , and Lex knew he _liked_ the man.

Or he _had_ liked him. _Damnit._

_Well, fine. If that's the way he wants to play it, we'll just see about that. I can play the untrustworthy villain just as nicely as the in-the-know friend._

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex waited at dawn for Superman's usual fly-by of the city.

Superman did just as he always did the last six months, by clockwork.

Lex, on the other hand, was watching from the roof of LexCorp Tower, rather than indoors.

"Don't suppose there's a good way to get your attention, is there," Lex muttered to himself, watching Superman-Kent go through the last streaking pass.

And then his heart nearly stopped as Kent-as-Superman came out of the last line in an odd lazy-looking loop.

Lex frowned, because that wasn't normal--

And then he nearly gasped and ran for cover when Superman arced up and then made a beeline for the roof. His roof.

 _Oh shit, oh shit, he couldn't have heard me--?!?_ But this was a man-godling who could push flaming planets out of orbit with his bare hands. Was it really that impossible?

"Mr. Luthor," Superman said calmly, floating two feet off of the roof. "Is something the matter?"

"I--" Lex stammered, looking up at him. And then he suddenly got angry.

"Do you have to do that?" he accused.

Superman blinked at him. "Do what?"

"Float like that! I have to tilt my head so far back that-- just land, will you!!" Lex grated out, irritated.

Superman looked at him oddly, then glanced down at the roof. He slowly floated lower and touched down carefully, as though he might have been expecting some kind of trap.

Lex made a mental note to install some traps on his roof, because that would be an _excellent_ idea to 'surprise' unwanted intruders with.

"What the hell was that yesterday?" Lex asked, glaring and striding forward.

"...You have a problem with how I saved your life?" Superman asked a little slowly, with a dawning incredulous look as he folded his arms.

_Idiot. Of course not, although you could have been a little more rough with the people trying to kill me!_

"No, I have a problem with--" and Lex paused as he realized that he didn't have Superman's full attention -- he'd cocked his head slightly and gotten a distracted faraway look. Lex reached forward and grabbed his arm as Superman began to turn away.

And Superman, Kent, whoever or whatever the hell he was, froze and glanced back at him.

"I have to--" Superman started.

"We're not done talking," Lex grated out.

"Lex, I have to go," he repeated, pulling Lex's hand loose carefully, his eyes twitching away again.

"No, you don't," Lex said, so angry at this point that he was twitching.

"No, you don't understand, I--" Then Superman's head swiveled around like a compass towards north. He looked pained.

"Damn it, you _will_ talk to me, or so help me god--!"

And Lex was suddenly alone on the rooftop with a stinging hand, a lost sense of balance, and a displaced stream of air whipping about him. He fell to the roof heavily on his hands and knees.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex cursed under his breath most of the rest of the day. Kent had nearly broken his fingers with that stunt. He'd had to wrap them in cloth bandages in the Penthouse before heading down to work. He'd been lucky it had been his right hand he'd tried to hold onto Kent with.

He'd worked up a good head of steam over the course of the long twelve-hour workday, and he was about ready for a long, hot shower and a decanter of fine alcohol to help loosen his brain up to tackle The Superman Problem the next morning.

He was wrapped in his favorite soft plush purple robe and about to settle in for the night when he clicked on the TV to check the stock ticker.

Thirty seconds later, the remote dropped from nerveless fingers. Three minutes after that he rushed to the bathroom, and was horribly sick.

Because Superman had weighed the possibility of a few broken fingers for Lex against the safety of a group of hostages caught in the crossfire of an armed robbery at a bank, and three people had been shot dead before he'd arrived.

Two had been children. One had been pregnant. ...So that actually brought the death toll up to four.

Another hostage had been shot, but was not dead-- yet. Considering the amount of brain damage probably suffered from what the news report had called a "glancing shot," however, it might yet be more merciful if they didn't survive the night.

Twelve others had suffered from minor wounds from automatic weapons fire when the police sharpshooters had started shooting out the windows and one of the robbers had panicked.

Lex knew Superman couldn't be everywhere at once. He knew he couldn't do everything at once. He wasn't a living, breathing god, and Lex didn't want him to be.

Superman was Clark Kent, playing at being a dorky reporter to try and protect his alter-identity, while producing excellent investigative pieces, and he didn't try to be everywhere at once, or do or be everything for everyone.

But the news anchor didn't know that. She was lambasting Superman for not being there in time. And she was quoting Lex in things he'd said for months, while he'd been none-the-wiser to Superman's identity, twisting his words to suit her needs and make her poisonous, irrational "point".

It was an outright witch-hunt, worse than any of the vitriol spewed forth from the tape recordings he'd reviewed from the time of the Vigilante Act. And they were using him to do it.

And he'd been the one to delay Superman in the first place.

One of the robbers had fired a few warning shots into the ceiling before the bloodbath had begun.

If he hadn't been so goddamn full of himself and _listened_ , or been even the least bit patient, five people wouldn't be dead, or as-good-as, that day. Three of them children.

_Oh god, what have I done?_

"Really, Lex," Tess said, sitting down next to him by the toilet. "You couldn't have done better if you'd tried, could you?"

"I didn't want this," Lex whispered. Yes, he'd been angry, but--

Tess just laughed.

~*~*~*~*~*~

END

**Author's Note:**

> AN2: [nicnac918](http://nicnac918.livejournal.com) [wrote a fic that references this one](http://archiveofourown.org/works/427991) (LJ post version [here](http://nicnac918.livejournal.com/25952.html)). I like it lots -- consider it as in-universe to this one, assuming that it's ok with her and if I ever get around to writing more and turning this into a series eventually ;) --Anyway, go read hers! It's excellent!


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